


In Her Absence

by InsaneandBloody



Category: BioShock, BioShock 2
Genre: Gen, Some drabble, i just really wanted to write some sad jack, this is super poorly written im sorry lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 18:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6162781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneandBloody/pseuds/InsaneandBloody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Brigid Tenenbaum first went missing, Jack thought nothing of it. Her visits were few and far between once Jack got the hang of being a father to the girls, but she had still made a habit of stopping by every month or so to check in on them. Until, one day, she didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Her Absence

When Brigid Tenenbaum first went missing, Jack thought nothing of it. Her visits were few and far between once Jack got the hang of being a father to the girls, but she had still made a habit of stopping by every month or so to check in on them. Until, one day, she didn’t.

The last time she had come by, Jack had ritualistically greeted her at the door with a warm smile and a signing of “come in” as she stepped over the threshold. It hadn’t taken long for him to notice her rigid posture and distant eyes, which she wore very publicly when around him, keeping a sort of professional manner to their meetings. Some of her stance was natural - she had always been a strange woman, Jack knew, - but there was an uneasy vibe surrounding her that Jack was not familiar with. She had greeted him quietly, then talked with the girls (who were more women than girls now, Tenenbaum always said, a sort of choked back pride sitting on the tip of her tongue when she’d tell him) before heading towards the door. She had hardly stayed for the hour, and her ‘goodbye’ seemed to sting her, wringing her hands together and glancing between the six of them in the living room. She left without another word.

-

It had been just short of a month since their last meeting, and something about it didn’t sit right with Jack. The end of the month was when Dr. Tenenbaum usually came by, but, so far, there had been no knocking at their door. The girls sensed his discomfort, he was sure - Masha kept glancing at him from across the room, checking on him. If she hadn’t come by or called by the end of the week, he would go check on her. He just had to be patient.

Patience was not on Jack’s side, despite himself. It had been a painfully long week, and he cursed every hour of it. He couldn’t stop himself from drafting different conclusions along the way. Brigid was not the most polite of women, but even she wouldn’t blatantly disregard him like this. She would have come by, if not for Jack, then for the girls, wouldn’t she? Her absence was surprisingly loud in such a big house, something that reverberated through every bedroom and rippled through him. Despite what she had done to him in the past, she had bettered herself, and had been the only one to stay by his side after he was _used_. She was the closest person Jack had to a friend. To a mother. It was the closest thing the girls had to a mother as well, and her disappearance did not go unnoticed by them, either. The entire household was under pressure.

He left for Tenenbaum’s apartment while the girls were at school. He was out the door no more than ten minutes after they left, eager to confirm or deny his own drawn-up conclusions. She had given him a key in case of emergencies, and if this _wasn’t_ one, he didn’t know what was. The complex was dingy and unkempt, and Jack wished she had let him chip in for a better place. But Brigid had never cared much for appearances. “As long as it is mine,” she would always state, so Jack would drop the subject and leave her be. Standing at her door now, he couldn’t help but think back on it, and, pushing key into lock, he could only hope that she was waiting for him.

The floorboards creaked under Jack’s weight as he stepped in. It was entirely undecorated, which had not been a surprise to him, and Jack caught himself wondering why she had such a big space to begin with. No couch, no dining table, no television set. No Brigid, either. The only thing left in the room was a single chair, pushed up against the back wall next to a small bookshelf and coffee table. As Jack passed through, his eyes caught sight of the bedroom door, left ajar by a mere inch. His stomach flipped at the sight, and he pressed his hand against the wood, gently, as if he were afraid to disturb her in her most private of spaces. Jack caught no sight of her, but no sooner locked eyes with the far wall of the room, adjacent to the bed. A massive map was haphazardly pinned into the stained wallpaper, bordered by dozens of newspaper articles, most written nowhere near their location. “ **GHOST LIGHTS SPOOK CRUISE SHIP** ,” “ **GIRL VANISHES – POLICE QUESTION AU PAIR** ,” “ **SEA CREATURE STEALING CHILDREN ON NEW JERSEY COAST!** ” Pieces were beginning to fall into place.

Jack couldn’t help himself as he flipped through the layers of notes and clippings. This had been long in the making, not sudden, and he had no doubts as to where she was. Something inside him, a blended mixture of fear and hatred and sadness, was bubbling up in his throat the more he dug. Why didn’t she tell him? Why would she go alone? How long until she would come back? _Would_ she come back?

 _No_. No, she would come back. She had to. Jack had to swallow down the urge to cry. Not here.

He stayed seated on the end of her bed for the longest time, staring down the connected points on the map. Her rushed handwriting alongside each marker, most of it in German scrawl. Stacks of yellow-stained books balanced on the edge of her desk. A torn open cigarette box left atop her notebooks. All he could do was drink it all in.

-

It had been over three months since Tenenbaum’s disappearance. Jack had stopped jumping up at the sound of knocking at the door and kept his hopes low when the phone rang. Brigid’s belongings, what few she ever left with him, had been gently put away and untouched since his visit to her flat. The girls learned to stop asking when she would be back - they found the answer in their father’s eyes before he could even raise his hands to speak.

Jack raised his line of sight to the clock that sat atop the television set. 8:43 PM. Most of the girls were hiding up in their rooms, studying or talking quietly, but Nancy had stayed downstairs, sitting off to the side in the rocker, keeping him some quiet company. His eyes dropped back down to the television, and he sunk himself further into the couch. Reruns of _My Three Sons_ was hardly keeping his attention – he could feel his eyelids drooping. He didn’t fight it for a second.

A knock at the door – a brisk, familiar two knocks – snapped Jack’s eyes open. Nancy watched him cautiously, nervous to ask if they had had the same brief thought. Jack pushed himself up off the couch and walked to the door, slowly, almost afraid to touch the knob. He grasped it regardless, cracking it open. His jaw went slack.

It was her. Of all the times he had wished and prayed, and it was actually her. Alive and well. Her salt and peppered hair was windswept, her blouse and skirt wrinkled and fraying, eyes more tired than he’d ever seen, wrinkled and sleep-deprived...but she was here, in front of him now, an apologetic look set into her brow. He had heard the sound of Nancy ascending the stairs the moment he had opened the door, he was sure they had an audience by now. They locked eyes for what seemed like an eternity before Brigid parted her lips, hesitantly, to quietly say, “Hello, child.”

He could do nothing more than beam down at her and hold the door open as she stepped inside, eyes glistening.

-

**Author's Note:**

> Some shitty idea I wanted to voice about Jack's thoughts once Brigid left for Rapture in the late 60's. Much of this was inspired by my constant bioshock headcanons with totalchaos, so props to them :^)
> 
> Tumblr is inhumanpsycho


End file.
